Compiled Recommendations Thread?

[Venkman]

The other thread is covering very well the esoteric and abstract concerns of the game. Should we break out a new thread to discuss the specific parts that could be improved to improve the abstract? I have all of about 12 hours of play in this beta, so am not capable of nearly any value add. But I did want to ask if we should get more detailed because it's those details that combine into the overall feel, not really the other way around.

So, what specifically could be done to Quests, melee, ranged and spell combat to improve the most important part of the initial impressions of the game (if you accept that crafting and raiding are not as critical on day one)?

[stray]

I'd have to say it's too late for that, and all of our complaints are just that....Complaints. The small things are indicative of overall design, which is where the real problem is. Offering advice on them might serve some purpose, but since it's already beta, I doubt it.

About the only subject I feel I can make a difference with are bugs.

[edit]

Seriously. I'm at a loss on how to make this game better. Or any game like this. I'm just not qualified to say anything about that subject.

Just polish, polish, polish, and wish for the best. And wish your name was Blizzard. I guess.

Otherwise, temporally halt the project and go play Return of the King for a few months (yes, the EA game).

[WayAbvPar]

I would like to think that it isn't too late. There is still a lot of stuff yet to be introduced, so some tweaking could be done down the line (before launch). There is a lot to like about many parts of the game, but some of them fall just short of being brilliant.

[Venkman]

There's no end to any game, so it's never too late. However, there is launch day success factors and whether an early flop can forever doom a game. How many games have enjoyed skyrocket growth based on things introduced or fixed years later? Most enjoy spikes from their foundation based on such things.

So launch success is important. This isn't a hit-driven genre yet, but you can't have only 50k box sales on day one either, if your business requires 10 times that.

Pulled from the other thread:

Kinda what I'm wondering here: what isn't fun? I ask seriously, having read through the thread. Are there specific things that could be fixed, or are people basically writing this off?

I'm not so starry-eyed to believe people invited to beta believes themselves to be there to make a game better. But if there ever is such a group, we'd be a part of it I'd imagine, particularly those who've been around since August (I'm in all of five days here, so it still has that new-car smell to me). LoTRO specifically targets us. Maybe they hope the license will draw new people in. But who in MMOGs haven't been playing them because MMOGs deliver experiences based on Tolkien's work? That's why I said earlier that the iterations of Tolkien have sort of defined the rules for iterating Tolkien.

WoW did that the best so far, only by nature of how many people they appealed to. LoTRO copying that model, to me, is something of a mistake. Nobody smaller than the Military or Pharmaceutical companies have the cash to go up against them directly. So where does LoTRO need to differ?

Crafting to me is not an answer. For one it has a narrow appeal by default. For another, beyond consumables, crafting will always be made irrelevant by drops eventually. The latter is just easier to control by the devs.

Combat? What could change there beyond balance and polish?

Does LoTRO need PvP, maybe against some shadow force working for Mordor that isn't an obvious good-guy/bad-guy thing? I say that because, typically, the bad-guys are out-numbered by the good-guys, by default. People don't come to these games in droves to play an anti-hero. That's a fun activity for some, but is not the widest appeal. Even WoW's "bad guys" are just misundertsood.

Better story-driven quests? A sense of linear narrative, working towards a larger goal? This is sort of where I'm at actually. WoW is a persistent world of activities. There's no sense of advancement there. No matter the quest, your alt can do it all again, years after you technically "solved" it. Does LoTRO require the ongoing narrative people thought justified AC1? And is that not present enough?

[WayAbvPar]

Personally, I would like to see combat scaled back...instead of killing 20 wolves, let me kill 1, but make combat interesting and tactical, and SLOWER. The sheer amount of things I have killed in the game is already staggering, and that is with a character in its teens! Running around and killing everything I see as fast as I can seems incredibly game-y; there is no immersion in the world.

Change crafting- give the character 3 slots, and let them pick which skills to use. If no one picks farming or cooking, what does that tell you about the fun factor/utility of these? Also- allow some sort of customization beyond a maker's mark (which I do like, btw). Maybe I paint all the bows I make purple or something. Might be tough on the art department for TRUE customization, but something in that direction would be nice. Maybe steal a Blizzard idea and use gems or something for slots on the crafted items- things that can only be done at the time of creation?

Character customization needs to be FAR more broad. As it is now, every single 12th level hunter is virtually identical to every other 12th level hunter, extremely minor equipment and traits aside. Give us more skills and allow us to choose x # of skills per level, instead of just handing out 1 or 2 predetermined skills. A skill tree would ala Eve or WoW would be even better.

The auto-travel options need a tweak too. It is stupid and game-y to have to travel somewhere on foot before I can go there on a horse. I don't control the horse, so why would I need to know where it is going? I have never been to St. Louis, but I am sure I could go to the bus station or airport, pay a fee, and end up there. Maybe charge a premium price for first time visitors or something, but let people explore the pretty world!

[Xilren's Twin]

So, what specifically could be done to Quests, melee, ranged and spell combat to improve the most important part of the initial impressions of the game (if you accept that crafting and raiding are not as critical on day one)?

Here's the rub; I think your question is missing the point.  You're talking about treating the symptom's rather than the root cause.  The base design is that of a typical EQ/WoW clone, and THAT is probably the area most here would want to change if they could.  There simply aren;t enought significant differences in the current LotRO design to make it standout as anything MORE than WoW with Hobbit trappings.  It's basically the same knock that people had with DAoC during it's beta ("it's EQ with Norse/Celtic/Anglican trappings"), but even then Mythic could point to the 3 way RvR game as a significant difference.

DDO, for all it's warts and lack of public love, was very very different.  AC2 tried some different things.  You can't out polish WoW, so what different are you bringing to the table?  At this point, Im not sure monster play is enough to a) draw people in, and b) keep them beyond the 30 days.

Xilren

[Furiously]

Everything about the game assumes you've played a MMOG before.

I somehow think playing an orc and being able to kill a hobbit would be a much more rewarding experience. Really - all I want is to go into Moria and kill a few hobbits.

[Nebu]

My thoughts:

1) Get rid of rats/dogs/snakes/etc and anything associated with "Kill 10 X and return to me for a reward".  I want quests that feel like a quest.  Return a valuable item, fight back an invasion, rescue a captive, etc.  

2) More player customization and more variance in character appearance through drop items.  At this point in gaming, I should be able to recognize friends by sight rather than by a name over their head.  A simple addition like dyes makes this possible in the 5 year old DAoC.  CoH/CoX has this down cold.

3) Give my character both the ability to solo effectively as well as contributing something unique and valuable to a group.  

4) The solo experience on any character class should be varied but equal.  Balance is hard.

Damn meeting came up... more later.

[Furiously]

Yea - everyone with "wolf" problems should be having "orc" problems.

[Furiously]

And you should be able to get into a que to play one of those orc, to kill hobbits.

[Cheddar]

I think we should reserve comments until after the next major patch.  Last one fixed tons of stuff and added "the fun" (to me, at least) to the game. 

[Johny Cee]

1.  Combat:

The combat is very "typical MMO",  but it's acceptable.  Polish it.  Give abilities and their visible effects more oomph.  

Maybe special abilities or extreme attacks on long cool down timers.  Let me hit something with my giant sword for massive damage and potential decapitation once every 5 or 10 minutes.

2.  Quests:

Less "kill X doggies" and more "accomplish this task".  Some of the Shire quests can be kind of a pain,  but are interesting.  Like the "collect the eggs, avoid the rooster" or "take a pie to Mrs. Underhill, avoid hungry hobbits" type dealies.


3.  Achievements?  (whatever they call the "see 10 landmarks" or "kill 30 bandits for a title" things):

Include a substantial xp award for completing.  Add more.  Make scouting and spying around pay dividends in xp/advancement.

I'd love to see achievements like "spot a rare Angmar courier in noob zone" or "spotted a rare monster" or "found the 3 stone trolls from the Hobbit".  

Add xp bonuses for the first time you meet/defeat new creature types, or named mobs,  or clear a specific dungeon.  It gives incentive to explore and do new things,  and makes you want to go out and see the world and the little touches.

4.  Expand on the lore/feel of the world:

It's got a good unique feel.  This is one of your big draws.  Make sure to expand the content.

5.  Tradecrafts/resource collection:

I was kind of enjoying wandering the Midgewater Marshes,  killing some creatures, doing some mining,  checking the sights.  Add more interesting one of things,  and give xp for "discovering plinth of the long lost West" type dealies.


It seems like a fairly solid PvE MMO now.  Nothing groundbreaking in implementation,  but that's alright if you push the positives of the IP:  the World/lore.

I've been too busy to do much in Beta (buying a house, studying for the CPA,  and generally being overworked),  but I have alot of excitement in exploring many of things I've read about.  

I want to see what they came up with as representations for the Barrowdowns,  or Mirkwood, or dozens of other places I've read about.  Add interesting and unique content for this, some minigames,  and give me rewards/let me advance my character by exploring these things, and you'll make plenty of players who want to check out a graphical representation of Tolkien's world reason to hang around.

[Arthur_Parker]

Change crafting- give the character 3 slots, and let them pick which skills to use. If no one picks farming or cooking, what does that tell you about the fun factor/utility of these? Also- allow some sort of customization beyond a maker's mark (which I do like, btw). Maybe I paint all the bows I make purple or something. Might be tough on the art department for TRUE customization, but something in that direction would be nice. Maybe steal a Blizzard idea and use gems or something for slots on the crafted items- things that can only be done at the time of creation?

The crafting thing is a sign of the major problem that affects all Turbine games.  Someone at Turbine decides what the correct way to play the game is, in this case the reasoning is that if players can pick their own crafting professions then the system will be unbalanced.  This is despite the fact that their most successful game was a min maxers heaven where you could permanently gimp your character at creation screen before you even logged in.

The major attraction in these games is the ability to do what you want, yet someone is trying to decide what's fun and if the vision doesn't fit your idea of fun, too bad. 

I think I have spent about 2 Min's crafting in total, it's obvious what's going to happen, everyone with a clue is going to go explorer for resource gathering and have an alt for creating things.  This will annoy Turbine and the current trend of making crafting quests more solo friendly will be reversed and high level bind on pickup crafting recipes will be introduced, it might take 6 months before it happens but it will be the easy way of getting the major making professions to appear on player's main characters.

Another sign of the turbine approved playstyle is the requirement to complete a newbie experience before you can enter the world, that's fupid.  I'd have a couple of alts by now, if I didn't know I have to go through loads of low level crap before I can get them to a mailbox.  They have also played with the terrain so it's not as easy to climb hills and run in straight lines, again forcing players to use approved routes of travel, again fupid.

The worst thing about it is they have done so very much right, yet I see them pissing it all away if they don't throw pre level 20 players a bone by making combat more interesting, sorting out broken skills, character customisation, fixing crazy buffed low level mobs that make soloing fellowship quests levels below you impossible.  Fixing elites that have too many hit points and crafting rewards that, according to the forum, are a complete joke compared to dropped items.  They should also thin the creature mobs out a bit, with crafting useless they don't drop anything I'm interested in and even with the improved aggro range I'm still having to kill way too many birds/wargs/lynxs.  Also level 35 flies, boars and bears on the road to Rivendell when you have very nice new Wight mobs in the middle of nowhere in Northern Trollshaws that you only see on one later quest chain, wtf?

The pvp system better be good, but apart from those few things and another dozen or so that slip my memory, I quite like it.

[Venkman]

Here's the rub; I think your question is missing the point. You're talking about treating the symptom's rather than the root cause.

Actually, that was my point in asking. There's likely not much of a chance of them pitching the entire foundation upon which this game was built. It's diku and that can be fine, given the history of the genre. It's all the baggage tossed on it over the ages that screw things up for games. So in this case, I feel it is about the features.

Yours' and others' comments here are I think really good specific things that can be corrected. The most obvious one, as a newbie, is the wolf vs Orc thing. I can kill wolves in WoW. The enemy here though is the Ultimate Bad Guy(tm), that of the Orc. Get me in front of them earlier, and have me taking out them on a CoH-like 1 person to 4 NPCs ratio. That is heroic. Killing nature is, well, not. Wolves are this games EQ1 rats, and that's a turnoff.

As to the game expecting you to have played an MMO before, I'm not so sure. It certainly is easier if you have, but I'd need to see impressions from newbies to the genre before knowing for sure. Trouble is, most beta testers generally aren't new to the genre because, well, genre newbs don't know much about beta testing MMOs in the first place, nor are they in the areas getting announcements about them.